


Grown-Up Girl

by rsadelle



Category: Bandom, Gym Class Heroes, Panic At The Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:41:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rsadelle/pseuds/rsadelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I think everyone already knows about it." Brenna keeps her smile on her face. "I was born Josh, but just so we're clear, I'm Brenna now. I have the legal documents to prove it."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grown-Up Girl

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for an [](http://anon-lovefest.livejournal.com/profile)[**anon_lovefest**](http://anon-lovefest.livejournal.com/) [prompt](http://anon-lovefest.livejournal.com/59382.html?thread=8898294#t8898294). There is more than one way to be trans; Brenna's choice is only one of many.
> 
> **Warning:** Includes mention of transphobic language and the potential for violence.

The best thing, the absolute best fucking thing about their album blowing up, better than having a crowd full of kids yell her name every night, better than having teen magazines ask her for beauty tips, even better than getting to sing and play music all the time, is that Brenna finally has the money for surgery. She's been managing her hormones (for a while there, she almost starved to pay for them, and she might have if Brent, Spencer, and even Ryan didn't keep slipping her food all the time), but surgery has been so far out of her price range she's barely even let herself imagine it.

No more tucking, no more having to find bras that pad and shape the way she should look. Her body is all hers, all the way it's supposed to be.

*

The first tour after her surgery is a thirty-two date romp through the US with Gym Class.

The Academy taught Brenna everything she ever needed to know about holding her liquor and smoking up. Gym Class teaches her how to do it while having the fucking time of her life.

"You're only saying that because you have a crush on Travie," Spencer says when she makes the mistake of telling him that's how she sees this tour.

Brenna shoves him and says, "Shut up," but he's not all wrong. She does have a crush on Travie. He's just so cool. He always has the best weed and is always willing to share. He's also huge, which Brenna is not ashamed to admit she likes in a guy.

(She thinks maybe she's admitted this to too many people when they're introduced to the first set of security guys on a tour and Ryan says, "Watch out. Brenna might jump you." The security guys didn't know them well enough yet to know that Ryan was joking. Brenna thinks he was joking, anyway.)

*

At a rest stop in Georgia (or Florida. South Carolina?), Brenna flings herself at Travie outside the diner. "It's too hot out. I can't walk all the way back to the bus. I need a big, strong man to carry me back." She turns her best wide eyes on him, the ones that get her Ryan's help with her stage makeup and half of Brent's coffee. (Spencer's sisters are too cute for them to work on him.)

Travie laughs and scoops her up like she's nothing, like other people would pick up a kitten. One of his arms seems to cover her whole back, warm through the cotton of her sundress and warmer on her back above it, and the other pushes her skirt up so it's her bare thighs against his skin.

*

Brenna gets the first call about the photos on a Tuesday. They're on someone's LiveJournal, two photos of someone who isn't her, not anymore, not since she stopped trying to make herself someone she's not.

> **"Brenna" Urie is a dude????**
> 
> I was on Panic's MySpace, and my roommate said he knows "Brenna" but his name's not Brenna. It's Josh.

There are two pictures with it, both from Josh's yearbook, one the school picture with "Joshua Urie" next to it and one of band, where he's in the middle of a bunch of other kids.

Brenna curls tighter around her laptop and scrolls down to the comments.

She knew this might happen, but she didn't think very hard about what it was going to be like when it did. (The rest of her band did. Spencer wanted her to have a plan, because he thought they should have a plan for everything. Ryan wanted to make her follow his plan, because he likes to be in control of things. Brent threw up his hands and said, "Do whatever the hell you want," but wasn't happy about it.)

People are mean. People are _really_ mean. Even the people who are trying to defend her are doing it by saying things like, "brenna's not like that. shes a real girl." She just keeps scrolling through the comments until Spencer looms up in front of her and takes her laptop away.

"No." Brenna tries to hold onto it, but Spencer's stronger than she is. "I should know what they're saying."

"No," Spencer says, "you shouldn't. I'm not even reading it." Spencer reads everything anyone says about their band. But now he takes her laptop and tucks it into his bunk. "I put _Aladdin_ in the DVD player in the lounge."

Brenna wants to protest that she's not some kid who has to be placated, but she hasn't seen Spencer look like this since the last time Ryan had a fight with his dad, so she goes into the lounge - Ryan and Brent have left her the spot with the best view - and hits play.

*

Spencer refuses to give her laptop back and no one else will let her borrow theirs, but she knows it's bad because the whole tour seems to decide the rest of her band can fend for themselves but she's never out of sight of one of the security guys.

Brenna does snap, eventually, and yells at Spencer. "I'm not some fucking kid! This is my life! If my own family" - her breath hitches there; that still hurts - "says that kind of shit about me, I think I can handle it from strangers."

There are whole thunderstorms in Spencer's eyes. (Brenna half expects him to start shooting lightning out of them, which would be pretty cool, actually, if it weren't directed at her.) "I remember. I was there. I don't want you to ever have to hear that kind of thing again."

He treats her like he treats his sisters, and that's what makes Brenna calm down. "I'm going to. You can't keep me from all of it."

Spencer nods. "I know. They want you to give an interview."

Brenna nods back. That was always part of Ryan's plan.

*

The interview is just her and Spencer. ("No fucking way you're doing it by yourself," he said, and only the fact that she knows he would say the same thing to Ryan kept her from throwing a fit about how she didn't need a babysitter.)

They stand in front of a camera with a couple of mics and a mobile interviewer from MTV. The interviewer asks a couple of questions about tour ("It's great," Brenna says, with a bright smile for the camera. "We're out with a couple of really awesome bands, really good people.") before he says, "Brenna, there's been a lot of talk about you recently."

Brenna chuckles a little. She's getting the hang of this publicity thing. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"You want to tell us about that?" At least the interviewer - she's forgotten his name, she's so nervous - is being tactful about it.

"I think everyone already knows about it." Brenna keeps her smile on her face. "I was born Josh, but just so we're clear, I'm Brenna now. I have the legal documents to prove it."

"We know you grew up Mormon," the interviewer says, and Brenna inhales against the pain she knows is coming. "How are things with your family?"

Brenna hangs onto herself. Ryan made her practice answering possible questions about her family. "My band is my family," she says.

Spencer finally brings his mic up and says, "And we're keeping her." He puts his arm around her shoulder. "No take-backs."

"So your band," the interviewer says, starting to lose his tact, "is okay with you?"

"Have you seen Ryan Ross?" Spencer says. "He wears more makeup than all the women on our tour combined."

The interviewer half laughs, like he's only doing it because he's supposed to.

Brenna takes control back. She signed on to be their frontwoman, and this is what that means. "Look," she says, "our scene or whatever is supposed to be all about letting people be whoever they are and do whatever is right for them. Ryan and Pete Wentz wear eyeliner. Frank and Gerard of My Chemical Romance kiss on stage. I'm Brenna." She shrugs. "That's all." She looks directly into the camera. "I didn't set out to be a role model. I just want to make music. But maybe knowing about me means some of you won't be as lonely as I was."

*

The interview airs the next day. Brenna doesn't watch it, but she knows it's out there, and she _hates_ it. Spencer still won't give her laptop back, so she has no idea what people are saying now, but based on her experience, it probably all sucks.

She hides out in the back lounge instead, wearing pants she had to borrow from Spencer. (All she owns are skirts. Usually it's great. Today she wants pants.) All the doors between her and the rest of the bus are open, so she hears someone knock on the door to the bus, and Spencer saying, "Yeah, she's in the back."

Brenna doesn't want to know who it is, so she doesn't look up until Travie fills the whole doorway.

"Come to look at the freak?"

Travie holds up a pipe, the one she loves the best because it shines purple like her favorite hoodie. "Came to see if you wanted to smoke up." He sits down, across from her.

Brenna gauges the distance to the door. She doesn't think that sitting down is what people do if they want to beat you up, but she still doesn't trust her instincts about what might make someone want to hurt her. (There's a reason she's still a virgin.)

"You've never come over to smoke up before."

"Today I did. You got a lighter?"

"No," Brenna lies. "Why are you here?"

Travie has to have a lighter on him - he's never without one - but he doesn't light up. "Saw your interview."

Brenna sneers at him. Fuck, why the fuck is he so huge? And what the fuck is he doing? "Have a thing for trannies?"

"Nah," he says, still completely fucking calm. "Got a thing for grownups."

That makes no sense. Brenna forgets to be scared, or mad. "What?"

"Girl," the word just rolls off his tongue, like he didn't even have to think about it, "you're hot. You're _smoking_. I know you've been flirting with me, but I thought you were just playing." He rolls his shoulders a little. "You're pretty young. But you handled yourself with that dude from MTV. I figure you're a grownup and maybe you're not playing, maybe I should get to know you a little better. You got a lighter?"

Brenna pulls the lighter out of her hoodie pocket and goes to sit next to him so she can get the first hit off the pipe.


End file.
